interior of the cabin was quite dim by this time, and he pressed the wall switch to light the room with a yellowish glow from the low-wattage bulb in the ceiling.
He was trembling with a listless sort of anger as he crossed to the dresser and slopped half an inch of whiskey into the bottom of a water glass. He turned the tap and ran water on top of the whiskey, wondering disinterestedly why the manager irritated him so.
He took a long swallow of the heavily-watered whiskey and enjoyed the faint warmth of it as it trickled down into his stomach.
He had just found out in these past few weeks what mighty fine stuff whiskey was. Before that he had always confined his drinking to parties because that was the only socially acceptable way to drink, and invariably he had drunk too much and made a fool out of himself and suffered the joint hells of a hangover and Emily’s sharp tongue the next day for his disgraceful conduct.
But this slow and carefully spaced solitary drinking was something very different, and he was as pleased with himself for discovering the process as though he had achieved a tremendous scientific breakthrough of some sort.
About an ounce every two hours was the ticket. You started early in the morning when you first woke up, and you got that soothing warmth in your stomach that brought on a sort of torpid indifference to the fact that it was another day. So you closed your eyes and dozed for awhile, and dreamed meaningless little dreams, mostly about when you were a little boy.
And then you aroused yourself enough to eat something, maybe. An egg or a piece of cheese and a slice of bread. And then you drank another ounce and dozed some more, and the day went on in a kind of pleasant blur that kept reality at bay and wafted you along to the enveloping darkness of another night.
This would be his last drink in the cabin until he came home later. Much later, he told himself, with restrained gladness. Midnight or three o’clock in the morning, or whenever he damn well pleased. And he must remember to bring another bottle back when he did come because there was only about one more drink left in the bottom of this one and he couldn’t face the thought of going out in the daylight tomorrow to buy another.
He seated himself carefully again on the side of the bed, hunched forward a little with shoulders stooped and both hands nursing the glass. A sedate, nondescript sort of man, and to see him sitting there, sipping pleasurably at the nauseatingly warm and slightly alcoholic drink no one in the world could possibly have guessed that he had two hundred thousand dollars worth of United States bills in his possession.
7
The bright spot was a large, square, ugly, one-story, stucco building squatting all by itself in the middle of a two-acre palmetto-fringed clearing about half a mile from the Trail and just outside the city limits of Miami.
It got its name from a ten-foot revolving disc of burnished brass mounted on a wooden tower a hundred feet above the ground and lighted at night by two spotlights so that it reflected a dazzling brilliance and was a landmark that could be seen for miles. It was approached by a narrow, twisting road through the surrounding palmetto hummocks, which debouched onto a large parking area capable of accommodating the same number of automobiles as the number of persons who could be squeezed inside the building. This was necessary because at least ninety percent of the patrons who visited the Bright Spot came alone in their cars. It was not a place that encouraged couples or foursomes, and the continuous floor-show from 8:00 P.M. until closing time had not been designed for mutual enjoyment either by mixed couples or even by a group of men friends out for a convivial evening on the town.
The Bright Spot offered a show that was calculated to arouse guilt feelings inside any male who sat through it. It was badly and simply revolting to most women. So men mostly came to the Bright Spot alone, furtively ashamed to be there and thankful for the extremely dim lighting inside which made it next to impossible for them to be recognized even if their best friends happened to be seated at the next table.
The management had planned it that way, and exploited the situation by providing enough B-girls so no man had to remain alone any longer than he wanted to. These girls were of two definite types, to appeal to the inward needs of two sorts of men who came there.
There was a covey of blatantly under-dressed and over-painted young girls, as close to the age of consent as the management was able to hire, whose bare, perfumed flesh was openly for sale and no bones about it. In the smoke-shrouded darkness of the big dining room with only a colored spotlight on the raised platform at one end where strippers did their bumps and grinds and monotonously removed their clothing, sweaty bodies could be glued together for long periods without attracting attention, saliva could be expertly traded between hot mouths and trysts arranged by panted words, and a man didn’t have to bother pretending he had come there for any other reason.
Indeed, in the small, almost entirely enclosed booths lining two walls of the room, which always had a large RESERVED sign on the table when unoccupied which could be removed only by slipping a five to the headwaiter, such trysts were frequently consummated without having to leave the premises. This feat was accomplished by only the most expert of the girls, and their services drew a premium price from men who were in the know and liked their sex served to them in that manner.
Then there was a second type of female employee who appealed to a different kind of patron. These were not as numerous as their young companions, but they had proved to be a distinct drawing card at the Bright Spot over a long period of time. They were older and more experienced courtesans who used every artifice of restrained make-up and careful grooming to appear to be exactly what they were not.
With them, a man who liked to pretend and believe that he was irresistible to otherwise chaste women was allowed to carry on this pretense to his heart’s content. In fact, he was encouraged to do so. This second group did not openly solicit the attention of men. They sat discreetly alone at tables and booths throughout the room, pensively toying with tall drinks, with demurely downcast eyes, yet clearly telegraphing a message to every male within eyesight: Poor, lonely me. Here I sit, deserted by some brute of a man, ashamed to lift my eyes to the depraved exhibition going on across the room, and yet… and yet, vaguely stirred by it nevertheless. Because I am a woman. Deep down inside, I’m all woman, yearning for a mate. Aching to be seduced and taken by some male who can answer the deep and primitive impulses that stir within me.
In that hot-blooded atmosphere these women were not allowed to sit alone very long. The world is full of men who fondly believe themselves to be Great Lovers and will not pass up any opportunity to prove it. A moderately attractive and half-way modest appearing woman sitting alone in a joint like the Bright Spot is like waving a red flag in front of an enraged bull.
And so the Bright Spot had proved itself a hugely successful operation and was crowded every night of the week with moderate spenders while many of the luxury sucker traps on the Beach were complaining that they couldn’t meet their overhead.
Thus, at nine o’clock on this night, more than half the tables and booths in the big, semi-dark room were occupied. A five-piece combo (one of three that would alternate throughout the evening) was beating out a slow, corny piece, while the stripper on stage was sinuously taking off her clothes, one lingering garment at a time, to the muted beat of the music which would build almost imperceptibly to a throbbing crescendo at the finale when the statuesque artist would stand briefly revealed in the colored spotlight completely nude (except for three pink rosettes that were glued onto her body not too firmly and might, just might, drop from their moorings in the last moment before the light was switched off).
It was early, yet, in the evening, and the minute quantity of alcohol in each drink served had not brought about any general degree of rowdy drunkenness among the early diners such as would be evidenced a few hours later.
At a small table in the corner beyond the spotlighted platform, the featured dance team of the evening were having an acrid argument.
“Don’t you go tryin’ to tell me where to get off, Ralph Billiter. I worked this act up and you know it. If I was to walk off tomorrow, where’d you be.”
“That’s what I’m always telling you, Essie. That’s why you got to get yourself smart an’ quit fooling around on the floor with men between numbers.” Sloe Burn’s companion at the table was as young as she, and muscular. He
